Utility companies typically measure consumption data by reading meters located at a service point, or endpoint, on customers' properties. To determine monthly natural gas consumption, for example, the numerical difference between a meter reader at the start of a month and at the end of the month reveals the amount of natural gas consumed. Utility companies can similarly measure customers' consumption of water and electricity. Using this information, utility companies are then able to bill customers based upon a price per unit of water, gas, or electricity. Information derived from meter readers can also assist utility companies in mapping seasonal and daily consumption habits of their customers.
Traditionally, utility companies have obtained consumption information by individually visiting customers' properties to physically read meters. Since the frequency of meter readers typically mirrors billing cycles, utility company commonly need to revisit the same meter on a monthly or semi-annual basis to obtain consumption information. In the United States alone, the annual cost to utility companies of reading water, gas, and electric meters is approximately $3 billion dollars. Much of this cost is the result of the cost of hiring individuals to visit customers' properties to obtain meter readings. As the population grows, individuals move to geographically remote locations, and the cost of wages rises, the amount utilities companies spend on individual meter readers is expected to climb.
Utility meter systems that require manual readings of consumption data represent a significant contributor to these rising costs and are marked by a number of other disadvantages. These disadvantages include a high incidence of reader error, exposure of individuals who read meters to safety hazards, the ease with which consumer can tamper with a meter reader, an inability to detect meter tampering, difficulty of obtaining consumption data at odd or inconvenient hours of the day, and an inaccessibility of meter readers due to dangerous dogs, locked gates, or angry customers.
To avoid some or all of the problems associated with manually obtaining meter readers, utilities companies have begun implementing automated meter reader (AMR) systems, also referred to as remote meter reader systems. Generally, AMR systems reduce or eliminate the need to visually inspect individual utility meters to obtain consumption data. This gives utility companies an opportunity to realize long-term cost savings, improve operational efficiencies, provide estimated bills that are more accurate, and build a meter-reading infrastructure adaptable to the companies' evolving needs.
In operation, AMR systems utilize an endpoint to communicate a signal representative of a utility meter reader to a remote reading device or network. Consumption data can then be incorporated into a data-collection system. Communication between the AMR endpoint and remote reading device is normally accomplished by radio frequency (RF). For example, most traditional meter endpoints employ a reading module that uses the utility being consumed, such as fluid flow or watt-hours, to power an internal drive system operably connected to a register dial on an index attachment. As a utility is consumed, rotations of an internal drive shaft change the readings of the register dials. In some AMR systems, a small module can be mounted on the face of the existing meter reader such that the rotations of the internal drive shaft cause an electronic signal to be produced. As described in U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0151886 by Buhl, an AMR-compatible meter reader module may include interfaces on opposite sides of a meter reader module drive shaft for rotationally communicating with and between the register index and the meter. The intercepted rotations may then be transmitted by a transmitter to various remote reading devices or networks by RF communication.
One of the biggest challenges a utility company faces in implementing an AMR system is converting traditional mechanically read meter endpoints into AMR meter endpoints. In particular, the cost of implementing AMR technology can be great since a utility company must individually set up AMR-compatible meter endpoints for each customer. Since a total replacement of a traditional meter endpoint may be costly, dangerous, and unnecessarily interrupt a customer's utility service, AMR endpoints have been designed to substantially preserve and, in fact, utilize the structure and functionality of existing utility meters.
Since several years are typically required for a utility company's reduced meter reading expenses to cover the costs of installing and implementing an AMR system, frequent repair or replacement of endpoint can reduce or negate the cost-saving benefit of an AMR system. Therefore, there is a need for low-cost automated meter reader modules that can be installed quickly and easily, resist degradation due to environmental conditions and use, and can be used in multiple methods of data collection.